Four out of ten passengers on Australian domestic or overseas flights admit they are still hungry after having a meal on the plane, while flyers rate 38% of in-flight vegetarian and vegan meals as “Yuck” or “Super yuck”.

The alarming findings derive from a survey of 293 CHOICE members. The Australian consumer advocacy group says its findings show there’s plenty of room for improvement in economy and business class.

Only about 28% of respondents considered their meals were anything better than “Okay”.

Breakfast is served!

Eating is a subjective experience and CHOICE used some subjective terms. More than half of its surveyed members (56%) rated the taste of standard meals as “Okay”, 22% as “Yum” and only 6% as “Super yum”. Disturbingly, 15% thought it tasted “Yuck” or “Super yuck”.

Some of the comments are pretty amusing.

“The shepherd’s pie looked like the shepherd had thrown up into a box,” wrote one indignant passenger. “It tasted almost as good as that too. Thank goodness for the free wine issue and Lindt chocolate mouth swab afterwards. I gargled the Merlot for 20 minutes to rid myself of the flavour.”

Another wrote: “If you like a fridge-cold banana muffin and dried coconut chips with goji berries, you’ll be in heaven. Thankfully we weren’t flying that high.”

Business class meals did not escape criticism and people were not happy with the children’s options. Oh dear!